Rose under the sea
by Laurissy
Summary: So the Doctor meets mermaids. Specifically Nine and Rose. Cute oneshot about nine showing Rose a mermaid. Slight hints of nine rose romance if you squint. Hope you enjoy and please review


**A/N so here we go writing the ninth doctor and rose. The Tardis team that started it all for me when I was a little wee fan. I basically got the idea that the Doctor should run into mermaids. I've recently watched H20 Just add water. Mainly because I've never seen a story where he meets mermaids and it seemed like fun. Also I just finished my first multi chapter doctor who Fanfic and I kind of wanted to do a cute one shot about something silly. I wasn't sure which Doctor Companion team I wanted to use for this story. But then I kind of liked the idea of it taking place just after the end of the world because I love the psychology that the Doctor shows her the end of the world for the first trip. I think he wants her to understand that everything ends and also just to see whether she can handle and of course she can. But I thought it would be nice to have him make it up to her.**

Rose sat there, staring at her chips. She wasn't eating them, more like playing with them. It was normality, it made sense to her. She looked at the man sitting opposite her who was the complete opposite of that. He made no sense, he wasn't normal and he'd just shown her the destruction of her planet. Why would he do that? Yet he showed her the world was here. So she ate chips because it was the most normal thing she could think of.

She liked this chippy. The guy always smiled at her as he served her and not in a dodgy way. She'd come to this place after she'd had arguments with her mum. Crying her eyes out. She'd snogged Mickey here more than once. She looked at the man sitting opposite her with his big ears, leather jacket and the biggest grin she'd ever seen. At the moment he wasn't grinning, he was irritated, tapping his fingers, looking out the window then at her and just moving. Then he went for it.

"Get off" she said slapping his wrist.

"What" the Doctor said innocently.

"They're my chips, if you want some get your own" Rose told him.

The Doctor scowled but it wasn't his serious scowl, it was his bemused scowl. He didn't get humans. They were selfish, strange and they compelled him completely especially this one.

"You're not eating them" he pointed out.

Rose shook her head "That's not the point." The Doctor just continued scowling "You can't just come here, show me that the world is going to end and then steal my chips, they're my chips, not yours."

The Doctor didn't respond.

"I mean I know you're an alien but you should know humans we" Rose struggled to finish to find the words to represent humanity "want to know what we're getting into and when you want a chip you ask for it or buy your own."

The Doctor looked at her, at this young girl, he'd picked up and whisked away. She wasn't the first but he needed to test her in a way he hadn't done to any of his companions. He needed to show her what it meant, what his world was now. Maybe he'd pushed it too far. He really liked Rose and he knew he wanted her as his companion at the moment no one else would do. He wanted her. Rose Tyler from Planet Earth who liked chips.

"I want you to take me somewhere, not really I want you to show me, this is stupid." She finished not believing such a stupid thought had come into her head.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"It's stupid" she said turning red and eating one of her chips, then he kept looking at her and she started to giggle.

"It's really stupid." She told him.

"Sounds Fantastic" he said smiling.

"I want to swim with mermaids." She said.

The Doctor looked at her "Why?"

"I don't know. I loved mermaids when I was a kid and I thought with you here with a time machine and then I remembered mermaids aren't real." Rose said nibbling on her chip afterwards and looking intently at the table so she wouldn't have to look at him.

The Doctor smiled his big grin "Of course mermaids are real, they're just hard to find."

"Really" Rose said hoping the Doctor wasn't tricking her. She burst out into a smile though.

"I give my solemn promise that I can show you real mermaids."

"No you're having me on." Rose said

"I'm not lying, if you want mermaids then I can give you mermaids." He said rubbing his hands together.

"This is so stupid; we're actually going to meet some mermaids."

"Right now, if you want." He said taking her hand.

"Hang on a sec, what am I going to wear?" Rose asked but she might as well have asked him what the square root of 1264 was. Thinking about it he'd much prefer that.

"Well, we'll be swimming."

The Doctor still looked confused "So our clothes would get wet." Rose continued.

The Doctor still looked confused "If our clothes are wet we can't swim that well."

A light bulb went off in the Doctor's mind "Well we can soon fix that, let's go shopping."

Shopping with the Doctor was simultaneously the most fun and frustrating thing she'd ever done. It was fun in the fact that the Doctor seemed to have an unlimited amount of money. But frustrating because he couldn't decide on anything and then ended up buying a lot of junk despite the fact they only wanted to buy a swimsuit. Rather disappointingly for Rose the Doctor had elected to buy full scuba gear. She would have liked to have bought a swimming costume she could show of in but when she implied this The Doctor just seemed perplexed.

"Rose, we're going straight to the ocean floor not the beach; you need to wear something appropriate."

"But Doctor…" Rose said petulantly.

"No buts, young lady." The Doctor said with finality.

They got back to the Tardis a few hours later. Her arms aching, carrying all this shopping to the Tardis. As Rose got in one of the bags broke and she finally got a look at some of the things the Doctor had bought. This included several comic books, an umbrella, lots of light bulbs and a painted sign that said "Rose's room."

"I'm glad I finally got round to getting a new umbrella, I used to love my umbrella." The Doctor said wistfully.

"A bit childish isn't it." Rose said picking up the sign.

"I thought it looked nice, plus it will save on a lot of confusion, trust me." The Doctor said pointing at it.

"Hang on a minute, I have a room." She said smiling.

"Well if you're going to be travelling with me, you're going to need somewhere to stay." The Doctor asked focusing on the controls.

Rose smiled at him "As long as I get my mermaids."

"Well here we are. The ocean floor" He said triumphantly.

He turned to face the scanner and smiled satisfactorily at it.

Rose went to the door then stopped "Should I open it?"

"Why wouldn't you open it?"

"All the water would come in."

"Oh protective shields don't go too far out."

Rose opened the door, it was really dark. Rose got her phone out to shine a light into the gloom and sure enough there was a clownfish bouncing against the shield. It seemed confused, poor thing. It didn't know what this strange thing was that was now in its way. But the little guy seemed to be determined to get through it.

"Aren't you going to get changed?" The Doctor asked.

"Yeah sure" Rose turned around and immediately started to laugh.

"What" the Doctor said looking offended whilst walking towards her.

"Sorry, you're wearing flippers." Rose laughed.

"Now I know how the voord felt, anyway you've got to get into yours."

Rose suddenly seemed unsure about all of this. "Are there really mermaids here?"

"Yes" the Doctor said.

"But we won't even be able to see them." She pointed out.

"We have these" The doctor said holding a torch; the guy said that this should work no matter what the depth."

"Should?" Rose asked.

"Hurry up or I'm going without you."

Rose wanted to call him out on his bluff but she wanted to see if he could do it. So she put on the diving suit with the silly flippers. She put the goggles on, noticing that they were branded bad wolf. Seems a strange brand for scuba diving equipment.

"I'm coming" she said struggling to walk.

The Doctor laughed "you know what it is a little funny."

Rose glared at him "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Tie this to your suit"

Rose did as she was told; "now because of the currents we're going to have to tie ourselves to the Tardis. Otherwise we'll never see the Tardis again." The doctor explained. He also clipped a rope to Rose "I don't want to lose you."

"Now let's get going." And the Doctor pushed off from the Tardis and they were underwater. Rose stared to panic; she felt the weight of a whole ocean and started to breathe faster and faster. The Doctor took hold of her and she could feel herself calming down as she started to breath normally. The Doctor gave her the ok sign and she gave it back and then she heard a song not in her ears but in her head. The Doctor pointed and Rose followed.

Then she saw it a real mermaid. It wasn't exactly the Disney version. It was a mermaid with a fish's tail and a human body. It was all green and her whole body was scaly not just the tail. She had hair but it was black and wiry and was full of seaweed, algae and sand. Its song was peaceful though, soothing even. Rose swam towards it.

The mermaid glared at her and in her head a question "Why are you here?"

The first thing that popped in Rose's head was "I always wanted to meet you."

The mermaid smiled, her ego clearly inflated. "The Doctor is here" the mermaid smiled and sure enough the Doctor was swimming towards them.

"Here I am coming through on the Tardis' psychic fields."He smiled "So your highness would you mind taking your esteemed fan for a swim.

"Wait she's really a princess" Rose thought but soon after the mermaid grabbed her hand and all of a sudden she was zooming through the ocean. It was like being on the world's fastest rollercoaster but instead of just going forwards. She was going backwards, sideways and she didn't know which way eventually they stopped outside the cave. She swam inside and saw it was just a cave. No treasure here.

"I am sorry to disappoint you but this is my home" she said with more than a hint of irritation.

"Sorry your highness but I was expecting…"

"You travel with the doctor and you expect" she laughed and Rose got mildly offended.

"It is time for me to apologise, I should not presume.

"Damn right" Rose thought but remembering that they were communicating by thought she decided to focus on the cave. At first it looked ordinary bit as she looked at it she realised that the cave was made out of metal. It shone reflecting the light from Rose's torch and as the mermaid swam to the wall the rocks started to move on their own.

"Sit" the mermaid instructed. All of a sudden a beautiful chair appeared. Well appeared is the wrong word it twisted itself into existence from the cave walls.

"I have very few guests here and I ask for one thing of those that make the dangerous journey towards me, they must tell me their story." The Mermaid gave her a piercing stare.

Rose shivered "I don't have a story; not really, I'm just a girl from London talking to a mermaid." She realised how odd that sounded so tried to start again. "You see I work in a shop well used to work in a shop and I have a boyfriend, well had, it's complicated and then I met the Doctor and he was" Rose struggled to find the right word "he was different, I didn't know what to make of him but then I helped him save the world from these plastic things and then he took me to the end of the world and now I'm here, talking to a mermaid."

"That is certainly an interesting beginning."

"So what's your story?"

"My city was stranded, we had no way to get food so they changed us and sent us into the sea to collect food, eventually the food started to grow again and so they changed them back but I did not want to change. I had spent my whole life in the ocean so they left me. You're Doctor calls me queen of the ocean but this is a lie, I am abandoned here until I die and then I will be gone.

"But that's terrible."

"I don't think so but your Doctor agreed when he came the first time he wanted to take me away but I told him I wanted to stay."

"Why? And why did you want my story anyway?"

"Because my child the sea is dark and full of terror and yet people come to see me. Why?"

Rose wasn't sure if she was supposed to answer but she did anyway "They want to see something fantastic."

"If I am fantastic why did they want to take away my scales and put me on land?"

The mermaid was staring at Rose now expecting an answer and after a silence Rose said "Everyone says they want fantastic but what most people want nice and affordable, you're not meant to have heirs and graces above you station, you're meant to stay where you are and be happy with what you've got and when people try and be different, they try to make you the same."

"You are wise Rose Tyler and I want to thank you for your story."

"You don't have to, this has been amazing really."

"I insist" She picked a rock of the floor and gave it to her.

"Thanks" Rose thought trying to not sound disappointed of course she had no idea how to sound not disappointed in her head.

"This is to remind you that the universe is different than what it seems and there are surprises all around you." The stone glowed gold in her hand and the mermaid smiled.

"It's time to take you to the Doctor." Before Rose had a chance to reply she was rushed of again. The first thing Rose saw was the Doctor playing with a jellyfish. He looked so cute and innocent like a kid playing with jelly. The next thing she knew the mermaid was far away and waving.

The doctor pointed to the Tardis. They swam back and Rose was glad to get out of her scuba gear.

"So did you have fun?" the Doctor asked

"Yes it's just it wasn't the Disney version."

"Disney you compare the whole universe to Disney, your horizons need to be bigger than a cartoon mouse." The Doctor said shaking his head.

"Don't you dare insult Disney." Rose said pointing at the doctor.

"Did you like it?" The Doctor said like a little kid trying to impress his teacher.

"I loved it" Rose admitted "But you need to be educated on Disney if we're going to be travelling together.

"Really" the Doctor groaned.

"Yes" Rose smiled haughtily "you need to expand your horizons."

**A/N So this took me a while this started as a silly idea but I did quite like writing nine and Rose again after all they were my first. Also Rose seems like one of those people who have the little mermaid on DVD. Plus I like to think it was Rose who introduced him to Lion King. So yes lots of silliness hope you like it and please review**


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